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Nov 12, 2016

A few days ago, we discovered that over 40% of the U.S. population believe that all Mexicans are rapists and all Muslims are terrorists, that African-Americans are inferior, that the handicapped should be ridiculed, and that sexual assault is ok. It gives one pause, but it's not without precedent.

When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, most heterosexuals believed that gay people were pedophiles and violent criminals, that we were inferior and should be ridiculed, and that physically assaulting us was ok.

We heard incessant "fag! fruit! fairy!" jibes from family, friends, and classmates, while politicians, judges, teachers, preachers, and psychiatrists joined their voices together in an incessant shout of "You're crazy, evil, sinful, criminal! You shouldn't exist!"

After surviving all that hatred, it was hard to imagine that heterosexuals were even human. Surely they were soulless monsters who spent every waking moment plotting new ways to defame, humiliate, and kill us.

So we carved out our own Safe Space.

Our world, the only place where we could let our guard down and be free, was bounded by Sunset to the north, Melrose to the south, Doheny to the west, and Highland to the east. At each of those boundaries there was an invisible barrier separating us from the wilderness.

Of course, we had to travel outside our world sometimes, for jobs, to go to concerts and museums, to get to gay bars like Mugi.

But we were very careful: the woods were full of wolves. We followed strict rules for survival.

3. Never speak to anyone you don't know, unless it is absolutely necessary.

4. Never take anything that a stranger tries to give you. It will probably be a tract about how sinful you are.

5. Never go to a straight bar or restaurant. It will be full of homophobes.

6. Avoid heterosexual books, newspapers, movies, and tv shows. They will be full of homophobia.

What about the heterosexuals you must interact with daily, your classmates and coworkers:

1. Keep the conversation strictly professional. Be polite but aloof.

2. Don't volunteer any personal information. If asked, be vague and noncommittal.

"What did you do last weekend?""

"Oh, I just hung around.

3. When they ask about your girlfriend or interest in girls -- which they always do within a few seconds of "hello" -- lie. Invent one. Never come out to them, and never say you don't have a girlfriend, or they will try to fix you up with one.

4. When they say something homophobic -- which they always do shortly after asking about your girlfriend -- don't respond. End the interaction and retreat.

5. What if you are accidentally outed?

If they start screaming, then obviously you should retreat. If they merely ask insulting questions like "Which of you is the boy, and which is the girl?", use your own judgment about whether to respond.

6. Never accept invitations to parties, dinners, or other social events. You will be fixed up with a girl or asked to discuss your interest in girls.

7. NEVER cruise them, regardless of how hot they are, or how friendly. They will interpret your interest as a humiliating insult, and attack.

I have a story about the rules, but writing them all down took up too much space. It will be up next.

Nov 11, 2016

Red Dwarf is the second-funniest science fiction series of all time, after Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There have been 11 seasons since it premiered in 1988, plus a feature film and an avalanche of guidebooks, novelizations, and merchandise.

The premise: Dave Lister (Craig Charles), a lower-level employee on the interplanetary mining ship Red Dwarf, is put into stasis as punishment for bringing a cat on board. But there's a nuclear accident, so the ship computer leaves him in stasis until it's safe to come out -- 3,000,000 years later. He's now the last human being left in the universe, all alone except for three companions:

Nov 10, 2016

Election Night. Following my tradition of Election Night Hookups, I went out to Woody's, an enormous twink bar with nonstop cruising. There was a surprisingly large crowd, some watching the returns on a big-screen tv, but most ignoring them, believing that politics was a game for homophobic heterosexuals, not for us.

At 51, I was one of the older guys there, but I'm a twink magnet, so I was getting cruised by a number of Cute Young Things.

I was NOT being cruised by Oscar the Grouch, a short, very muscular guy, probably my age or a little older, with a round face, a stern military haircut, and a constant scowl.

Oscar was not being cruised by anyone, in spite of his physique. Maybe his age and scowl were turn-offs. He stood by himself at a little counter, beer bottle at his side, grimacing at everyone.

I never do well with older guys, but I thought, why not give him a try?

I sidled up and introduced myself. The first thing he said was: "Aren't twinks the worst?"

"Um...beg pardon?"

"Frilly little wankers, so soft and sassy, wouldn't know what to do with a real man if he bit them on the arse."

Well, this was a twink bar....what did he expect? "I'm from West Hollywood...." I began.

Before I could finish my sentence, he continued, "Why is America full of stooks?"

"Um...beg pardon?" I said, trying to place his accent.

"Idjits. You get into a big row over gay marriage, when civil unions do the same job. What's the difference?"

Um...

"And your tv is bollocks! The other night I was watching Parks and Recreation. 'Oh, you have to watch,' me friend said. It's cor deadly, right?' Infantile drivel, more like."

Ok, he was annoyingly downbeat, but I was entranced by the accent, which I finally placed as Irish.

Nov 9, 2016

Why is Christopher Atkins a gay icon? To the best of my knowledge, none of his characters have been gay, although he did have a part in It's My Party (1995), about a gay man (Gregory Harrison) with AIDS.

And his character on Dallas (1983-84), Peter Richards, a psychology major who mentors Ewing heir John Ross Jr., can be read as gay-vague, even though he is bedded by an older woman

Blue Lagoon (1980),the movie that made him a superstar, is entirely heteronormative. Boy and girl grow up on a desert island together, Adam and Eve in Paradise before the fall, with no need for anyone or anything else.

Then he played a swashbuckler (The Pirate Movie), a stripper (A Night in Heaven), a lifeguard (Wet and Wild Summer), a sexy vampire (Dracula Rising), a professional gambler (Shoot), and. . .well, just about every profession that has been featured in a Harlequin Romance, always with a fade-out kiss.

Is it because of his body? It was not muscular, but it was slim, toned, tanned -- and visible. During the 1980s he was more comfortable displaying himself on camera than any other actor in legitimate film, and he's still going strong. He's had so many nude scenes that it's hard to keep track of them all.

But is beefcake enough? Arnold Schwartzennegger has appeared nude a lot, also, but he's hardly a gay icon.

Maybe it's because of how his body was displayed. Men on display on screen are usually in instrumental poses -- they are fighting or having sex. We're not supposed to be desiring the bodies, we're supposed to be admiring their utility. But Christopher's poses were usually ornamental -- he was standing, or dancing, or lying on a bed, doing nothing, displaying his body for its own sake, as an object of beauty.

Chris thinks it's his penchant for nudity (what other major star has nude pictures of himself on his own website?). In a recent interview, he stated: "The 80s was a big time for the gay movement and here came a movie (Blue Lagoon) where it was male nudity being prominant rather than female nudity and so [I] became sort of an iconic poster child at that time."

Maybe it's his amazing gay-friendliness. During the 1980s, most male actors refused to acknowledge that they had gay fans, or acknowledged them with a hysterical protest of their own heterosexuality, but Chris genuinely liked and supported his gay male following, and that in itself helped not a few come out: "It's ok to think Chris is attractive -- it's ok to be attracted to men."

It was Election Day: George Bush, the Vice President of homophobia for the last eight years, vs. Michael Dukakis, who hated gay people and was a fierce opponent of gay adoption.

I was depressed over my doctoral dissertation, my ever-mounting collection of bills, and my lack of a boyfriend, so there was no point in getting even more depressed. Instead of voting, I went to Mugi, the bar for Asian guys and their admirers.

It was not crowded on a Tuesday night, with most American citizens home watching the election returns: a few Asian guys clustered together on one side of the bar, a couple of regular admirers, Creepy Old Guys who leered and got drunk but never cruised anyone.

And a twinks: short, slim, rather feminine, with a cute round face, a square chin, and prominent eyebrows, standing by the bar with a beer bottle propped up like an erect penis. Cruising me with a sultry stare.

I was there to meet Asian guys, not a twink who looked like he just walked out of the Rage, so I gave him Attitude.

But he didn't catch on; he sauntered up to me with a broad smile and held out his hand. "Allo, I am Stash (stesh) from Romania (Romen-ia)."
Romanian was the only Romance language spoken in Eastern Europe, descended from the Latin of the Roman legionnaires. Incomprehensible to speakers of Spanish and French: lots of Slavic words, strange diacritical marks.

I'm going to have to spend the next four years explaining to all my European friends why we elected a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, incompetent bully. Only one explanation: the majority of Americans agree with him. Most just kept their racism, misogyny, homophobia, and Islamophobia bottled up.

Not anymore. This is a terrifying time to be black, gay, Muslim, or a woman.

Or anyone with a dissenting opinion. Der Fuhrer has already promised to eliminate Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech. The rest of the Bill of Rights can't be far behind.

Nov 8, 2016

Born in 1958 in Los Angeles, the 6'4", 245 lb Gary Kasper was a high school football player, junior All-American coach, wrestler, and fitness expert before he hit Hollywood.

It was the era of the man-mountains, when, after the various setbacks and failures of the 1970s (the fall of Saigon, the oil embargo, Three Mile Island, the Iranian Hostage Crisis), movies displayed Americans using their fists to save the world. All you needed was a bodybuilder's physique and a gruff voice to get cast in a movie about barbarian swordsmen, boxers, cage fighters, martial artists, or soldiers of fortune who could single-handedly take out an entire enemy army.

Gary was a man-mountain, but he never could seem to find the right vehicle for his pecs.

His first movie role was as "Ben Gay" in The Feud (1977), which he also produced. I don't know what it was about, but it sounds homophobic.

Vision Quest (1985) is not actually science fiction: it's about a high school wrestler (Matthew Modine) who has the "eye of the tiger." Gary played Otto, an evil wrestler.

J.O.E. and the Colonel, aka Humanoid Defender (1985), a tv pilot later released on video, is about an android created to be a "perfect soldier", but lacking a killer instinct. So one of his creators takes him in and tries to transform him into a human being.

Gary spent the late 1980s and 1990s playing wrestlers, soldiers, gangsters, bodyguards, cops, and "The Muscle Guy," the standard heavy types, without any big roles. Perhaps he was most famous as the Pilot in Batman Forever (1995).

He also played Extreme Sports, wrestled, played martial arts, and worked as a personal trainer.

Then the era of the man-mountain ended, and he was a bodybuilder without a country. He produced and starred in his own man-mountain movie, The Seventh Man (2008), about DEA agents in the Central American jungle being stalked by an unknown evil. But it wasn't enough.

By the 2000s, he was moving into stunt work. On screen, he mostly played monsters -- Bigfoot (2012), serial killer Ed Gein (Death Factory, 2014), a vampire (The Hunted, 2015), the alien K'Hund (on Supergirl, 2016).

80 movie and tv roles over a period of 30 years is very impressive, as is Gary's work in other fields.

Still, one wishes that he could have become another Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Agents of SHIELD (2013) is a tv adaption of the Marvel comics series, produced by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Joss Whedon.

SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division -- rather a clumsy way of saying Homeland Security. Except instead of ISIS, they're fighting "inhumans" (people with paranormal powers that emerge suddenly, for various reasons).

The Big Bad is Hydra, a secret society run by reptile beings, which has attempted to intervene into world history many times, from ancient Egypt through Nazi Germany (Hitler was a Hydra stooge). Its current secret weapon is the Hive, some alien parasites merged into a single sinister being.

There's also an evil government agency that wants to kill all inhumans, regardless of whether they're on our side or not.

There are 11 agents of SHIELD, each with their own alliances, hidden agendas, and angst-ridden back stories.

1. Grand Ward (Brett Dalton, top photo), an undercover Hydra agent who is possessed by the Hive.

2. Leader Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who died at the end of The Avengers, but who said that all of the movies, tv shows, and comics in the Marvel Universe have to have continuity?

3. Pilot Melinda May (Wing-na Wen), who has a horribly tragic backstory.

7. Jenna Simmons (Elizabeth Hemstring), a biochemist who was trapped on the planet Malveth for six months, and emerged psychologically damaged.

8. Lance Hunter (Nick Blood, left). Does anybody else like the actors' names more than the characters'? Blood, Hemstring, De Caestecker vs. Hunter, Simmons, Fitz? Anyway, he's a gruff mercenary who was married to Bobbi.

Plus a huge supporting cast of government officials, Hydra agents, college professors, college professors who are really Hydra agents, Hydra agents who are really government officials, civilian ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriends, monsters, kids, lions, tigers, and bears.

David Conrad as Ian Quinn, a billionaire industrialist who tries to sell Deathlok soldiers to the U.S. military and has gravitonium (whatever that is).

Leave it to wishy-washy Joss Whedon to wait until the series has been established to gingerly introduce a gay character. During Season Three, Joey Guttierez (Juan Pablo Raba) was introduced, an inhuman who can melt metal (and hearts). He was adopted (and outed) by the SHIELD agents.

He even managed to go out on a date -- well, the beginning of a date, before he was called away on SHIELD business. Then, his story arc ended, his character was dropped.

I guess we'll have to be content with straight guys taking their shirts off.

Nov 7, 2016

Armand Douglas Hammer, aka Armie Hammer (1986-), who played the Winkelvoss Twins in Social Network, Tonto to Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger, Illya Kuryakin to Henry Cavill's Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Clyde Tolson to Leonardo DiCaprio's J. Edgar Hoover, is the last in a chain of Armand Hammers.

1. Armand Hammer (1898-1980) was a businessman and philanthropist who founded Occidental Petroleum, donated widely to liberal causes, and groomed Al Gore into a political career. He was married four times, but had only one child.

2. Julian Armand Hammer (1929-1986), led a life plagued by mental illness and substance abuse, and a charge of manslaughter. He had two children, Michael and Casey. Michael was expected to run the empire.

3. Michael Armand Hammer (1955-) rejected his family's liberal Jewish heritage to become an evangelical Christian. He now channels the fortune into an evangelical Christian film studio, a Christian college, Jews for Jesus, and innumerable fire-and-brimstone preachers.

4. Armie refused to be called Armand at an early age. He got into Dad's bad graces when he said he wanted to become an actor, but was reconciled when he started getting starring roles.

By the way, Armie has a younger brother, Viktor, named after his great-uncle.

For all of my life up until today, I thought the Armand Hammer name was a pun on "Arm & Hammer," the baking soda produced by the Church and Dwight Company. The picture of the muscular arm holding a hammer dates back to 1867, when it was first used by the Vulcan Spice Company to represent the Vulcan, the god of industry.

The Vulcan Arm and Hammer can still be seen on many building facades.

The original Armand Hammer swore that he was not named after baking soda, although he did join the Church and Dwight Board of Directors in 1986. His parents, Russian-Jewish immigrants Julius and Rosa Hammer, were staunch Socialists who helped found the Communist Party of America. It sort of make sense that they would name their son "Armand Hammer" after the logo of the Socialist Labor Party.

But staunch, serious Socialists naming their firstborn son with a pun? Unlikely.

Hammer himself had another idea: Armand Duvall, a young man in love with a dying prostitute in the Alexander Dumas novel La Dame aux Camélias, published in 1848 . Here he is played by Colin Firth in a 1984 movie version. It has a strong gay subtext, and has often been parodied or adapted for the gay stage.

Armand's parents weren't necessarily interested in French novels, but they probably saw a stage version in New York in 1896, two years before Armand was born.

So, pun on a Socialist logo or a gay prostitute's boyfriend? Either one is more interesting than a box of baking soda.

Rock Island is staunchly Democrat, and my parents were the most staunchly Democrat of all. I spent my childhood going to election rallies and passing out bumper stickers, and falling asleep on election night listening to the returns on tv in the next room.

But when I grew up, my political interests ended altogether. Politicians seemed to be competing to see who could express the most homophobic hatred. Why bother to support candidates where the choices were "I promise to keep your children safe from homo recruitment!" and "I promise to keep homos from shoving their sick lifestyles down your throats!"?

I still voted in most presidential elections, if I could figure out which candidate hated us the least. And, to assuage my feeling of persecution and victimization, I started a tradition of Election Night Hookups.

1. Professor Burton. November 4, 1980. The first time I was able to vote: my junior year at Augustana College. After voting, I had dinner with Professor Burton, a husky bear in his 40s who taught geology.

Results: "Gay menace" Ronald Reagan enjoyed a landslide victory over the only mildly homophobic Jimmy Carter and John Anderson.

2. Dan the Chain Smoker. November 6, 1984. During my horrible, depressing year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas. After voting I hooked up with a guy named Dan: in his 30s, short, slim, bearded, smoked constantly. I had an ash tray in my apartment, but instead he used a damp napkin on a saucer.
Results: "Gay menace" Ronald Reagan got 58% of the popular vote over Walter Mondale, who, when asked to say something about gay people at a campaign stop, angrily walked off stage.

3. Turning Japanese. November 8, 1988. Depressed over my doctoral dissertation, broke, lacking a boyfriend, I paid no attention to the presidential race, and didn't vote. I went to Mugi, the gay Asian bar. A Romanian twink named Stash approached and asked where in Asia I was from. I don't know why -- I don't look at all Asian. For some reason I told him "Japan" and had to go with that through our entire date.

Results: George Bush, Reagan's vice president of homophobia, beat out Michael Dukakis, who hated gay people and was a fierce opponent of gay adoption.

4. Alan's Ex. November 3rd, 1992. After we voted, Lane and I went to an Election Night Party held by the Stonewall Democrats, and ended up going home with Alan's ex-boyfriend.

Results: Bill Clinton, the first candidate to mention gay rights (he promised to end the military ban on gay people), got 72% of the gay vote and 43% of the heterosexual vote, beating out George Bush.

5. The City Councilman. November 5th, 1996. David and I went to another Election Night Party. I didn't actually get a hookup, but I got a date with Tom Ammiano, who was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

When Gay Was Unspoken

Beefcake, male bonding, and gay symbolism in the movies, tv programs, books, toys, and comics of a Baby Boomer childhood. Some autobiographical stories and stories about beefcake around the world.

Note: Most posts are about how gay people can find meaning in homophobic or heterosexist texts. If you don't want to hear about that, stay away. No profanity, insults, anti-gay slurs, name-calling,or homophobia allowed. You will be blocked, and comments on the post will be disabled.